FREEDOM'S FACES: 'I was so blessed'

Joe Book built bases between shots from snipers

10:14 AM,
Aug. 19, 2012

Joe Book was a Sargent in the Army during World War II. During that time he was a construction engineer supervisor and helped his men build hospitals, bars, and the such overseas for different military personal to use.

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At its most basic level, destruction seems the whole point of fighting a war, but Joe Book's military job centered on the opposite.

Construction.

"We worked night and day, 24 hours a day," he said recently, sitting in the living room of his rural Albany home while his wife of 44 years, Norma, sat listening nearby, attending to their frisky dog. ...